68 pages • 2 hours read
Yeonmi Park, Maryanne VollersIn Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 22-24Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 22 Summary: “Now on My Way to Meet You”
In Chapter 22, Yeonmi achieves another milestone when she is admitted to the criminal justice department of Dongguk University. Before the school year begins in March 2012, she receives a phone call from a TV show producer who heard her story from someone at the Hanawon Resettlement Center and invites her to speak on his program. Yeonmi refuses out of fear of becoming a public figure, but the producer convinces her that the program is very popular and says it will air on the Educational Broadcasting System (EBS). The coverage might help her find her sister. Yeonmi discusses the offer with her mother and accepts the risk. The show airs in January 2012, but there is no word of Eunmi.
Two months later, Yeonmi begins studying at Dongguk University, where she finds happiness in expanding her mind. Although she rents a small apartment near the school, she spends most of her time at the library. When she recalls how dark the nights were in North Korea compared to her current life in Seoul, she wonders where she belongs.
After her first public appearance on TV, Yeonmi is contacted by the producer of Now on My Way to Meet You, a popular entertainment TV show on which a revolving cast of “attractive young women [...] chatted with celebrities, sang, danced, and performed comedy skits” (197). She is offered the opportunity to be part of the panel, which is made up of North Korean defectors. Although her motivation in joining the show is to find her sister, Yeonmi ends up learning a lot about the realities of North Korea through the stories of the other panelists. Unfortunately, the show does not help Yeonmi in her search for Eunmi.
Chapter 23 Summary: “Amazing Grace”
Yeonmi’s professors and classmates realize she is not South Korean after recognizing her on Now on My Way to Meet You. Yeonmi struggles with self-image, wishing to assimilate to South Korean culture but realizing it is impossible to hide her origins. Her schoolwork also takes a toll on her health. She loses weight and cannot keep up with the required physical and military training necessary for her major in law enforcement. She switches majors to study police administration. During summer break, Yeonmi uses the money she earned from Now on My Way to travel to Cebu in the Philippines to learn English. Her academic performance is stellar. She has finally proven to herself and to her peers that she is capable of success. She is on the path to self-fulfillment.
Yeonmi takes a break from school and work in the summer of 2013 to do volunteer work helping the poor with Youth With A Mission, a Christian mission group from Texas. She feels she has been selfish in caring only for herself in Seoul and now wishes to help others. She travels to the United States for the first time, and seeing the country allows her to see past the negative propaganda she was taught in her youth. She receives initial training in Texas, then leaves on a two-month mission to Costa Rica. Seeing the suffering of others, Yeonmi prays for their safety and realizes her world is no longer about just her own well-being. The act of helping others allows her to heal emotionally. She learns she has always had compassion but did not know how to express it. The more she feels for others, the kinder she becomes toward herself. After a homeless man cries hearing of her escape from the Gobi desert, she learns that sharing her story can help others.
Yeonmi hears news of her sister for the first time in November 2013, seven years after her disappearance. At the time, Yeonmi is living with her South Korean host family in Virginia. She flies back to South Korea and reunites with her sister at the National Intelligence Center. She has now fulfilled her father’s wishes, and she knows he is smiling down on her.
Chapter 24 Summary: “Homecoming”
Yeonmi and her mother celebrate the New Year in 2014 after reuniting with Eunmi. Whereas they previously had no cause to participate in the festivities, this year they are no longer sad. Yeonmi is reinvigorated and plans on returning to school to finish her degree. Her New Year’s resolution is to speak English more fluently, and she hires 10 tutors and listens to English audiobooks even in her sleep in an effort to improve. The head of her tutoring program encourages her to deliver a speech about North Korea at the Canadian Maple International School in Seoul as a means to practice English. An audience member confesses her story inspired him, and Yeonmi learns she can advocate for human rights for North Koreans by sharing her past.
In February 2014, the United Nations reports on the human rights violations committed by North Korea, garnering international attention. Defectors with the capacity to speak English are needed to communicate and articulate their stories. Since her speech at the Canadian Maple International School, Yeonmi has been contacted by various media outlets and given various interviews. She is invited in September to represent her country at the One Young World Summit in Dublin. She speaks about human trafficking in China and is subsequently interviewed by various European media outlets, but in all of them she omits her personal story.
One month later, Yeonmi resolves to write her memoir and divulge the darkest details of her time in China. She returns to Seoul and discusses with her mother and sister how to proceed. They open up about their own experiences, which they have never shared even with each other, and fully support her in her activism. Yeonmi feels completely free for the first time. In 2015, the North Korean regime publishes a video in which her relatives in North Korea denounce her and her family. She is pained to see the people she left behind suffer on her account but hopes they will one day be free.
Yeonmi’s mother returns to China in the spring of 2015 to recover her father’s ashes. She brings them home to South Korea, and the family is reunited. Park hopes she can one day bring her father’s ashes back to Hyesan. She wishes to see the day the country is reunited as a single entity, Chosun.
Chapters 22-24 Analysis
In these final chapters, Park demonstrates that her arduous journey to recovery remains incomplete until she learns to feel compassion and finds the courage to speak about her abuse. This is the ultimate catalyst for her involvement in human rights activism: Having come to terms with her darkest memories and having shared them with others, she realizes her story holds power. She was once silenced and oppressed, and she feels for the millions of others who still live in those conditions. Park demonstrates courage and resilience when she decides to share the true story of her abuse publicly. Using her English to reach a wider audience, Park gives voice to countless other North Korean defectors by denouncing the North Korean regime and bringing to light the inhumane conditions of human trafficking in China.
Park proves that her capacity to feel compassion is innate and not learned, but she could not properly express it without being taught the relevant vocabulary and social cues. At Dongguk University, she learns about justice and self-determination; her education helps her understand and order her own emotions. Park’s path to recovery leads her to believe that people are capable of great compassion when they are treated with respect and dignity. In North Korea, her material condition was so poor her only care was to have enough food to ensure her survival. For example, as a child, her biggest dream was to have a bucket of bread to fill her stomach. She did not have the ability or energy to pity homeless orphans whose condition in life was worse than hers. In China, she had to work to support her mother and endure the humiliation of being raped by Hongwei. With her survival constantly on the line, Park had no capacity to care for others. For the longest time, she thought of herself as unfeeling, but she has since learned that she can care for others when given the time to heal her own wounds.
Although Park’s first steps toward becoming a public figure are taken to find her sister Eunmi, they also allow her to learn about the experiences of other North Korean defectors as well as other victims of oppression. Park’s time at Now on My Way to Meet You and her participation in international conferences help her expand her heart to include others. Although she admits that she joined Youth With A Mission with the selfish motive of making herself feel better, the time she spends volunteering makes her realize she has the capacity to feel empathy. The act of helping others is edifying and contributes to her personal growth. Park is moved when she is told her story is inspiring to others. These positive experiences push her more firmly onto the path to activism.
In the closing paragraphs, Park’s strength of character is illustrated in her unwavering desire to give voice to North Korean defectors. Her deep belief in justice holds true even after the North Korean government threatens her by calling her a liar. Park’s courage is unshaken even after the South Korean police warn her that her safety might be in danger. Park is adamant about her choice to become a public figure and embraces activism while putting herself at risk. She is not deterred even when her first attempts to reach her sister prove to be unsuccessful. Her vigor is renewed once she is reunited with her mother and sister, their encouragement and support giving her the strength to push on. Park takes up human rights activism as her final step to self-fulfillment and is finally “living a life with no limits” (201).
